


I'll Love You More (So Don't Be Scared)

by lizzieonawhim



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Galra Keith (Voltron), M/M, Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:36:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9407783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizzieonawhim/pseuds/lizzieonawhim
Summary: Keith has been held captive by the Galra for weeks. When Lance finally finds him on board a Galra ship, things don't go quite the way he expected. Written pre-season 2.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I kept meaning to post this and then I didn't, and now season 2 came out and ruined it so it's not canon-compliant anymore, so whatever. I thought the reveal should've been more dramatic, but I'm kind of a drama queen, so yeah. Anyway nobody asked me but here you go
> 
> (title is from Come to Me by Goo-Goo Dolls, which isn't my favorite song but titles are the worst, so)
> 
> Many thanks to karkaphony on tumblr, who betaed this for me!

Lance imagined a lot of possible scenarios for when he finally opened the door to his boyfriend’s cell on a Galra warship. He would open the door and Keith would look up from the corner with a smirk and a “What took you so long?” but he wouldn’t be able to hide the hope and relief in his eyes. Lance would help him off the floor, they’d kiss--

But then again, maybe Keith wouldn’t be in his cell. Maybe Lance wouldn’t even get that far; he’d turn a corner and there Keith would be, just finishing off a guard. He would look up, their eyes would meet, and then...

Or maybe -- much as it hurt to think about it -- Keith would be too badly hurt for any of those things. Lance would have to carry him off the ship--

Well, maybe not that one. Much as Lance loved to imagine himself lifting his beloved into his arms and carrying him back to the Blue Lion princess-style, he knew that wasn’t realistic. Keith had fallen asleep in the main living area of the Castle once. Lance had thought he’d be a good boyfriend and carry him off to bed, but it turned out Keith was pretty much solid muscle. It had ended in bruises for both of them, as Lance had made it about three steps before toppling over from the weight. So yeah, if there was carrying to be done, Hunk was going to have to do it.

Lance hadn’t allowed himself to consider the possibility that Keith was -- that he might be… No, he couldn’t be. Lance couldn’t even let himself think about that. He had thought he was prepared for anything else, though. 

But all of Lance’s imaginings had presupposed a positive reaction. He had figured it would be a given that Keith would be happy to see his boyfriend after weeks of separation and that he would want to get the hell off this warship as soon as humanly possible. He had not thought to imagine Keith scrambling away from the door, further into the shadows, nor the possibility that the first words out of his mouth might be “Get back!”

About to fling himself at the person he had spent weeks trying to find, Lance stopped. “Keith?” he said uncertainly. Suddenly he remembered Shiro’s amnesia and felt a brief swell of panic. Had the Galra done something to Keith’s mind so that he couldn’t recognize his own boyfriend? Shiro had been a miserable wreck when he first crash-landed on Earth, much as he had tried to hide it, and the more they all learned about that missing year, the less Lance wanted to know. All the same, at least Shiro had known who his friends were. At least he hadn’t been frightened of the people he loved _. _ Lance felt his breath quicken as he tried not to imagine what the Galra could have done to Keith in such a short period of time that would be bad enough to make him forget his own boyfriend.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

At that, Lance relaxed. The possibility that Keith might try to be a self-sacrificing jackass about the whole thing hadn’t occurred to him, but it probably should’ve, since that was what had landed them in this predicament to begin with. At least it meant he remembered who Lance was.

“As if we were ever gonna just leave you here.” He took a couple of steps forward. “Now come on, we have to--”

“No!” Keith flinched away from him; Lance stopped moving, once again at a loss. “No, Lance, I mean it. Y-you should just go. F-forget you ever saw me.”

Now it was Lance’s turn to flinch; leave Keith behind? The thought was too painful to contemplate.

“Keith, no, I--”

“Lance, please--”

“No!” The word came out sharp and fierce. “No, Keith, what the fuck? I’m not leaving you here, I wouldn’t leave anyone here but especially not  _ you _ . God, what kind of boyfriend -- what kind of  _ person _ do you think I am?”

“If you knew--”

“Knew what?” Lance demanded. “What could I possibly not know that would make me abandon you to the Galra? Because I can’t even begin to imagine anything like that.” Keith was silent; Lance felt his own hurt and indignation melt into concern. “Keith?” He dropped down onto his haunches, tilting his head in an effort to get a good look at Keith’s face. Keith just curled tighter into the little ball he had formed in the far corner of the cell, foiling Lance’s efforts. “Keith, babe, c’mon. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“Please just go. I-I don’t want you to see me like this.”

Lance felt his gut twist in agony; Keith sounded  _ broken. _ Lance cursed himself for not finding him sooner, for letting him pull that stupid stunt in the first place. He’d spent every day since Keith was captured beating himself up over it, but seeing in person what these past few weeks had done to Keith was like pouring lemon juice into an open wound.

“Come on, Keith. You know I don’t care about how you look. Would I put up with that stupid mullet if I did?”

“You’ll care about this.”

“Try me.” Silence; Lance tried again. “Look, man, I am not leaving here without you, so you may as well show me what’s wrong so I can tell you it doesn’t matter and we can blow this popsicle stand. The others are providing a distraction, but I don’t know how long it will last.”

“You’ll hate me.”

“Never.”

There was a beat; then, “You promise?”

“Yes,” Lance said instantly. “God yes, Keith, I promise, I could never hate you, I never have and I never will, just  _ please _ tell me what’s wrong.” There was a long pause, during which Lance hardly dared to breathe; then, just as he was frantically struggling to come up with something else to say, Keith slowly raised his head.

“Oh my god,” Lance breathed. Keith was  _ purple. _ Bright yellow eyes gleamed in a lavender face; pointed ears poked out from under his usual tumble of dark, messy hair. He was still the same size as ever, but apart from not having appeared to grow three feet spontaneously over the past few weeks, he looked like -- like --

Like a Galra.

“Oh my god, Keith, what -- what did they  _ do _ to you?”

Keith let out a harsh laugh. “Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. They -- they didn’t have to.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m part Galra, Lance.”

Lance had questions,  _ so _ many questions, but time was running out and Keith was looking at him with this horrible combination of sadness and resignation and he  _ still _ wasn’t moving, so Lance put them aside for now. “Keith,” he said, creeping forward on his knees, only to freeze in place yet again as Keith shrank back. Frustration rose up in Lance’s chest; he took a deep breath and let it go, forcing the feeling aside. Keith didn’t need that right now. “Keith, it’s okay.”

“No it’s n--”

“Yes, it is. C’mon, babe, you don’t seriously think I care that you’re purple, do you?” Lance forced a laugh, keeping his eyes trained on Keith as if he might vanish if Lance blinked. It felt like a real possibility. “Keith,” he said quietly, dropping all attempts at levity, “babe, please. I’ve only just found you. Don’t -- don’t ask me to leave you behind.” Lance felt tears sting his eyes. Keith’s face crumpled; a moment later, Lance found himself with an armful of purple, fluffy boyfriend. He grunted at the impact, but held on tight as Keith clung to him, his body shaking with sobs. Lance let out a long, shuddering breath as he pulled Keith close; it was as if a tight, painful knot in his chest loosened as he held his boyfriend in his arms again, one that he had almost forgotten what it was like to live without.

“I’m sorry,” Keith gasped between sobs. “I’m s-so s-sorry, I d-didn’t know, I swear I didn’t kn-know--”

“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Lance soothed, even as he felt tears dripping off his nose. “I know you didn’t. It’s okay.”

“I hate this, I -- I’m one of  _ them _ \--”

“Bullshit,” Lance said fiercely. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. I don’t care what you are, if you’re Galra or Altean or -- or anything else, you’re  _ Keith _ and that’s all that matters.”

At that moment, Lance’s com clicked on. “Lance, are you there? Have you found Keith?” Hunk sounded frazzled. In the background, Lance could hear laser fire.

Lance pulled back to answer it and cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m here. I found him.”

“Sweet! Tell him I said hi, would you?” The laser fire intensified; distantly, Lance heard Pidge yell,  _ “Hunk!” _ “But, uh, listen, you guys gotta get out of there. We’re doing our best out here, but there are a lot of Galra and, uh, long story short, you’re gonna have company in a minute if you don’t hurry it up.”

“Okay man, thanks for the heads up. Be careful out there.”

“Yeah, you too.”

The com clicked off. Lance looked at Keith. “We gotta go. Hunk says--”

“I know,” Keith interrupted. “I heard.”

Lance raised his eyebrows. “So the ears aren’t just for decoration, then.”

“Apparently not.” Keith took a deep breath and let it out in a long, shuddering exhale. “Guess we’d better get going.”

“Yeah.” But neither of them made any move to get up. Looking into those sharp, angular features -- still so familiar, despite the dramatic changes -- Lance felt a sharp pull of longing in the middle of his chest. “God, I missed you,” he whispered, and before he could think twice about it, his hands were cupping Keith’s cheeks and he was leaning forward and then they were kissing, lips closing over each other as naturally as if they’d never been apart. Keith let out a desperate little whimper, prompting a surge of fierce protectiveness that had Lance deepening the kiss, trying to prove to his boyfriend that he was wanted he was needed he was  _ loved _ \--

Only to pull back with a yelp as his probing tongue encountered a sharp canine that hadn’t been there the last time they kissed. Keith’s eyes widened with horror. “Shit, Lance, I--”

Lance interrupted him with a laugh. “It’s okay, babe, we’ll work on it.” Keith still looked anxious, so Lance gave him a quick peck on the nose and stood, laughing again at the way Keith scrunched up his face. Classic Keith. “C’mon, let’s blow this popsicle stand.” He held out a hand; after a brief hesitation, Keith took it and stood.

“Yeah… yeah, let’s go.” Hearing the still-unshed tears in his boyfriend’s voice, Lance gave him a reassuring smile. Then, still holding Keith’s hand, he summoned his bayard and led the way.

  
  



End file.
